Tools

Source Code Analysis: Spellchecker-Style

By Adrian Bridgwater, January 18, 2012

Klocwork 9.5 is on-the-fly source code analysis

Klocwork has reached the 9.5 version release of its Insight source code analysis (SCA) tool. Attempting to break open a new demand stream for its product, the company has adjusted its usage model to make it work on-the-fly in the style of a spellchecker to analyze code as a developer types. Klockwork is now making a conscious effort to move away from "batch processing" deployments where all code analysis is centralized; the company hopes to give C/C++ programmers the same kind of tools that many web developers are already used to.

With a direct emphasis on security vulnerability and defect detection, Klockwork asserts that source-code analysis should be viewed as a developer tool, not an audit tool. CEO Mike Laginski describes a new on-the-fly user model, where a developer's interaction with the tool has been simplified. By underlining code defects in the style of spell checker as code is written, Insight then provides syntax and dataflow analysis, build comprehension, and incremental analysis running continuously in the background to ensure "thorough and highly accurate identification" of security vulnerabilities and critical defects.

"With a new HTML 5 implementation, Klocwork Insight's web reporting tool allows development teams to answer complex questions about the security, reliability, and maintainability of their code base quickly and easily. A redesigned report creator and new report templates use simple drag-and-drop pivot chart capabilities to allow users to design reports that meet their organization's specific needs," said the company.

Klocwork Insight 9.5 offers cross-project impact analysis and reporting, which indicates whether a reported issue exists in other code bases, branches, or builds. With its "smart matching" technology, the proposition here is that development teams that reuse code across multiple systems won't waste time finding and fixing the same issues over and over. This new feature is also said to help developers prioritize issues based on both severity and prevalence across multiple code streams.

"Speed was the theme of this release. Our customers want faster analysis, faster access to build data, and instant visibility across all their projects and code branches," said Gwyn Fisher, CTO at Klocwork. "This release delivers on all counts and truly sets the bar for C/C++ analysis speed. No competing product comes close, and more importantly, we believe this approach will make source code analysis a natural fit in every developer's workflow, leading to better software and lower development costs."

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